Pastor Slaughter
Good Friday
April 7, 2023
His Final Steps Led to the Place Called the Skull
Luke 23: 26-33
The Roman soldiers led Jesus down the half mile walk to the Place of the Skull. But the man who had been brutalized within an inch of his life was too weak to walk to the place of the skull while carrying the crossbeam on which he would hang. How many times did our Lord stumble and fall? How many times did his guards goad him to get up? How long did it take till they lost patience and they grabbed someone strong enough to get this half-mile trip over with and done! The gospel of Luke says, “They seized Simon of Cyrene who was coming from the country. They placed the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.”
Simon literally follows in the footsteps of the Savior. Little did he recognize that as he was being forced to help, he really was the one being helped. Because once Jesus was there on the cross, he would pay the price for all Simon’s sins, all of my sins, and all of your sins.
There were others as Jesus steps led to the Place of the Skull, who were deeply sorrowful and cared for Jesus, the “women who were mourning and wailing for him.” Weak though he was, Jesus was determined to go. Jesus proved why he willed himself forward to take each step. It was because he cared. Because he loved. It was because he loved selflessly and sacrificially. Out of perfect devotion to his Father and because he was the only member of our human race who knew precisely what “love for your neighbor” was all about—even when dying the most agonizing deaths of all time.
God-pleasing selfless love looks and sounds like this when Jesus heard the wailing from the women following in his footsteps he said: “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Be sure of this: The days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never gave birth, and the breasts that never nursed.’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things to the green wood, what will happen to the dry?” (Luke 23:28-31) On the way of sorrows, our Savior’s heart broke—not because of what he was going through but because of what the lost would go through! As God’s Son Jesus could see the future. He knew when the Roman general Titus would come and siege Jerusalem in A.D. 70, would cause a mass starvation, destroy the city, and level the temple, massacring untold numbers of men, women, and children. . Jesus’ Good Friday prophecy to the women was so chilling; our Lord knew that caring mothers would rather be barren than bear children only to see them suffer so! Even in the midst of his suffering his heart went out to those that would suffer.
I think sometimes we glance over this little detail, and we miss the impact of it, “Two other men, who were criminals, were led away with Jesus to be executed. When they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified him there with the criminals, one on his right and the other on his left” (Luke 23:32,33) It was with criminals that Jesus took his final steps to the place of the Skull. Jesus, who did nothing wrong, was viewed and treated like a criminal. At the end he was crucified with a criminal on either side.
Isaiah foretold this would happen in 53:12, “He let himself be counted with rebellious sinners.” That’s why he took his final steps to the Place of the Skull: to be counted not just with but as a substitute for a rebellious sinner like me. One is weighed down by the guilt of my sins, one who has failed to love my neighbor as myself by what I say or think or do. Weighed down by the guilt of my past sins, weighed down by the guilt of my present sins. Can you relate?
And Yet out of pure amazing grace, Jesus allowed his name to be entered into the Lord’s Judgment book in place of mine, in place of yours. Jesus, the only human being to be pure in every thought, every word, every desire, every action, in his final, selfless sacrificial act, allowed himself to be counted with the criminals like you and me and take our place and endured God’s wrath, to forgive us.
This was always the Lord’s plan—one of pure grace. It’s why his final steps led to the Place of the Skull.
Then come the words that weigh heavy in the air, “When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there with the criminals.” Yet one word in that verse speaks volumes about the passion of our Lord; “crucified.” Crucifixion. Some would call it the most painful means of execution ever devised. Jesus’ crucifixion is a nightmare. It is a glimpse of the evil which man can exhibit toward man.
Yet the physical agony of the nails, the exhaustion of trying to breath as our Savior hung on the cross, pales in comparison to the anguish of soul our Savior endured from the torrential flood of punishment his holy God rained down on him that day. The wages of sin. All of God’s wrath! All of God’s punishment! All of God’s judgment. For you, for me, and for the human race. This is the horror of the Friday we call Good. It had to be hell for Jesus to bring heaven to you and me. That is why his final steps led to the place of the Skull. Amen.